CHAPTER 5

It was just before the midnight shift change when Urian called it a day and gathered his notes, giving them one last look.   Interesting notes tonight, he thought.  Ed was relieved of staying with Albert at the drop.  The rock club didn''t appear to have any relevance.  Albert, having run up a hundred- twenty-dollar cab fare so he could read the entire script, served his purpose.  Ed earned enough on the tip for a month''s supply of Krispy Kremes, and I''ve got a curious new tenant to learn more about.

 “So, Urian, what’s got you so intrigued with Roxanne,” Saeger asked.

“You mean besides the eye candy you seem to have devoured the past three hours?”

Saeger snapped the straps of his overalls again.  “Take what I can get around here.”

“Well, the answer is KH5 might have made a mistake if this woman gets too feisty and gets a suit laid on her.  That’s the kind of attention The Godard doesn’t need.”

“Now I know why you get the big bucks… never take what you see for granted, do you?” asked Saeger.

“I just don’t like surprises.  Skitter, make me a disk of that script angle, okay?”

Skitter handed him a disc.  “You mean this?”

Urian looked at the disc labeled “Script” and smiled.   “I do like certain surprises.”

“I know, boss man.  You’re the one who taught me that the exceptions to the rule are what makes the important history.”

Urian nodded.  “Yes, I did.  Another nail I hammered in my own coffin.  See you tomorrow morning.  That meeting with the tenants should be interesting.”

“I have a feeling your Quill-line is going to ring off the hook after that little get-together,” said Saeger.

                                                      ---

The following morning, an empty large living room, save for the two large conference tables and chairs dominating the living and dining areas, served to bring a number of the Keyhole Project tenants together.  They had together made a special request for a video meeting with the Project Liaison, as Urian was so titled.

A screen at the head of the living room table displayed Urian, the single contact the enrollees of the program had to voice their concerns and complaints.  Cameras in the corners of the room carried images to the monitoring lab in addition to the POV of the thirty-one in attendance. 

Skitter and Saeger sat at the monitoring station watching attentively as they managed the multiple screens.   “Interesting.  Obviously, they’re not used to someone just listening, as they requested.  Must be the malady of the times… talking over… feeling they have to…”

“Shhh,” said Saeger.  “Liz hasn’t worn down, yet.  Good thing there aren’t any plates to throw.”

The monitoring screens show everyone looking at Liz, who was nervously twisting the scarf around her neck tighter.  “I’m just upset,” she said.  “I didn’t think I’d be bothered so much by all this, but…”

The on-screen Urian continued to listen.

Richard spoke up.  “Urian’s not listening.  He’s not even…”

“Okay, Richard.” said Urian.  “Calm down.  I am listening.  You’ve all had your say over the past…”  He looked at his watch.  “…the last thirty minutes.”

“We’re human, you know,” said Richard.  “Just like you, we change our minds sometimes.  We have second thoughts.  That’s all.”

“Richard, you all signed a business contract.  Changing your mind is an option, but not a very good one, if you remember.”

“And…” Richard continued, “some of us find adjusting to your satellite tracking of our every move, our really private times, shower and bathroom… is one thing, but…”

“Yes, Richard?” said Urian.

“But, are you messing with our sleep time?  I mean some of us… our sleep is not our sleep, you know?.  Is something going on…”

“Richard,” Said Urian, “I’ve agreed to relay a request for one-hour per day, any hour, your individual choice, to be unmonitored as an amendment, and…”

Everyone turned toward the hooded-sweatshirt clad woman with the black hair draped over her face as she said, “Ask for two hours and take one.  We all know the directors, your board, or whatever, will object, threaten, and counter whatever you ask for, right?”

Urian leaned forward and smiled at Sami, a quiet paralegal by day, and club junkie by night, as she spoke beneath her hooded sweatshirt.  “That attitude is gonna be good for the research, Sami.  Your paralegal day job probably puts you in this defiant mood for the club hopping you do at night…”

“Don’t even go there, you…”

Urian cut her off.  “Sami.  Before you call me names, let me do my job, okay?”

Sami pushed the hood off her head.  “And, what about these dream coincidences?  Is that something we can all look forward to?”

“Okay.  I can ask for two hours,” said Urian.

Sami cleared the hair from her face, revealing eyes that could change the definition of green.  “You’re evading, Mr. Urian.”

Skitter and Saeger both scanned the monitors, seeing that everyone’s point of view  was as keen as Sami for the answer.

“I have no need to ‘evade,’ Sami.  What would you like to know about ‘sleeping?’” answered Urian.

“Liz heard…” said Sami.

Liz interrupted.  “I can ask my own questions, Sami.  It’s not about ‘sleeping.’  It’s about dreams.”  Liz adjusted her position.  “We, Richard and I, were just talking and  realized we were having… we’re experiencing some strange stuff in our dreams.  Like, hearing the same underwater sounds.  That anything to do with this implant we’ve got?”

“Yeah,” chimed in Richard.  “How about that?”

Urian thought for a moment.  I have the same question for Quill.  “All we do is track you.  I don’t know anything about any policy of sleep intrusion.”

“You’re saying I should just see a doctor?  Is that what you’re saying?  I’m fucking… crazy?” said Liz.  “Me and Richard are crazy?”

“Like I said earlier, it may just be a coincidence… the sounds I mean.  The dreams,” said Urian.

“Not a coincidence, Urian.  Same dream… climbing through barbed wire… and water.  Then the white light… the blinding white light.  What the hell is that kind of sound and image doing in two dreams happening in the same sleep cycle for two people?  People don’t dream the same thing, damn it!  Only just since you guys started this Keyhole thing and…”

Hector, the doorman, who had been sitting at the far end of the room, spoke quietly.  “There are parts of the world where that isn’t so unusual, Richard.”

Richard whipped around. “Well… this isn’t one of those parts, Hector,” said Richard, taking a paper towel and wiping his sweaty hands.

Hector continued.  “What I mean is, there are people in the world who ingest herbs and roots that create common hallucinations and…”

Richard looked Hector in the eye and said, “What the hell is that suppose to mean?  I don’t take any drugs, or mushrooms, or bloody roots.”  He turned to Liz.  “Do you?”  He turned to the rest of the table.  “Do any of you guys ingest any of this crazy voodoo stuff, huh?”

“No offense, Richard,” said Hector in his continued quiet manner.

Richard backed off.  “I’m… sorry.   No offense taken.  Sorry.  Just nervous today,” he said as he sat back in his chair.

Wanting to get off the subject, Urian leaned forward.  “Why has that got you so bothered, Richard?”

“Try getting seduced…”  Richard caught himself. 

“Pardon?” said Urian.

Richard shook his head.  “Just thinking out loud.  Forget it.”

Urian stood.  “Well, I’m sorry if I didn’t have all the answers for you today, but I’ll get the questions taken care of.  Just know I’m sympathetic to your privacy concerns, and I’ll make my recommendations.  Thank you for your time.”

“Don’t forget the dream thing,” said Liz.

“Of course.  I’ll definitely look into that for you.”

Urian walked away from the staging area, a small room adjacent to the monitoring room, equipped with special cameras, and stepped into the monitoring room.  Skitter raised his hand as if to high-five.  “Not that kind of moment, Skitter,” said Urian as he tossed his clipboard and lit a cigarette.  “Make me copies of the sleeping periods for Richard and Liz… past two weeks.  I don’t need that kind of session ever again.  Tough enough trying to manage sixty people’s POV.  To be accused of…”  He turned to Saeger.  “You still think there’s something we don’t know, don’t you?”

Saeger continued monitoring the screens.  “Let’s just say we better have some answers for them next time.”

“I agree,” said Urian.  “Transfer that data transcript to my computer, Skitter.  I’m bushed.  Need a nap.”

Skitter shrugged.  “No problem.  Want me to highlight the parts with dream problems?”

“Yeah,” said Urian as he put out his cigarette and walked toward the exit, preoccupied with his thoughts.  “Yeah… the dreams.”

Another set of eyes followed Urian as the lab camera, the hall surveillance, and then the mini-cam in Urian’s quarters monitored his entering and dropping on his bed. 

Urian stared up at the corner camera.  “We need to talk, Quill.”

“Before or after you reveiw the sleeping data?” said Quill through the speaker housed above the camera. 

“Don’t ask such obvious questions.  I’m gonna catch fifteen first, then I’ll review, then we’ll meet, okay?”  He turned over on the bed. 

“How about later tonight?  I’ll have your favorite prepared.  Porterhouse, isn’t it?  Medium rare?”

Facing the wall, his eyes were anything but sleepy. “Rare… blood rare.”

                                                      ---

In The Godard furnace room, Tito downed a bottle of water and stepped back to his chair in front of the boiler and furnace.  The door behind him opened and Hector stepped in.  “Damn, memorizing isn’t going as easy as usual,” said Tito

“It will,” Hector assured him.  “Performance Art is new to you now, but it’ll become comfortable soon.  You are naturally suited.  Just time is necessary.”

“Hope so.  Meeting go well?” asked Tito.

“Somewhat of an interruption, but a necessary one.  Want to run anything by me before I get back to my job?”

Tito picked up his script.  “Where we left off?”

Hector nodded and poured himself some coffee from a thermos on the table. 

Tito situated himself so he could glance at the script on the chair as he rehearsed.  Leaning forward, he whispered at the boiler as if the audience were directly in front of him.  “One of these days, there’s gonna be a monster thing, a big monster thing, and we’re all gonna be sucked dry.  Nobody will be flesh and blood man.  All the brains will be sucked dry and we’ll get piled up like so many sticks of wood for some big gigantic bonfire, man.  And then the monster will look at us with those letterbox eyes and it’s gonna tell the fuckin’ plants and animals they’re next.  And you know why, man?  ‘Cause they figure there ain’t any reason to maintain all this sweaty flesh when you can put all that’s worth anything in a computer, that’s why.  We’re just a cheesy transport vehicle for the brain to get around anyway.  Always have been.  No wonder our ancestors still stay high in the trees and swing on vines, man.  They know.  They know.  Bad engineering, man.  The worst.”  He glances at the script.

“You’re doing fine, Tito.  Starting to understand it all, aren’t you?”

Tito shrugged.  “Don’t know.  Sounds a bit sci-fi, you know?”

“Yes it does,” said Hector.  “That’s why it will be interesting.  Everybody likes sci-fi.  Makes them feel safe and entertained.”